


look at the light through the windowpane

by lattely



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), also the way i resolved iw's ending might be a bit inaccurate but who gives a shit, as long as our boys are happy i sure don't, from then on it's just obnoxious fluff, infinity war fix-it, steve and bucky love each other so much you'll get chest pains, there's only a bit of angst at the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 15:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16267193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lattely/pseuds/lattely
Summary: All that mattered to Steve then was not that the world would be safe, after all, though, but that the colorless flecks of soil rose into the air, sticking back together to reconstruct Bucky’s shellshocked form, starting from his booted feet, up to his eyes that were still lodged into Steve, filled with panicked confusion.





	look at the light through the windowpane

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my drafts for a couple of months. Today I dug it up, did my best to edit it, and here we are.
> 
> The violence warning only applies to a single paragraph you can easily skip, but I wanted to be thorough.
> 
> This isn't betaed; all errors are my own. There's probably a swarm of unnecessary commas waiting for you below, but I'm very proud of this work nevertheless.
> 
> Title is from Richard Siken's beautiful poem _Scheherezade_.

When Steve's darting eyes fell upon Bucky breaking apart to grey dust, spinning to the forest floor in grains of dirt, all of his muscles, as if on cue, were immediately sore, awash with pulsing wrath and grief and horror and, most of all, with fearful numbness. It kicked at Steve's heart to beat thrice its pace and thrice the volume, and forced the desperate howling down into his throat, where it blocked his airways and nearly brought him down to the ground as well.

Everything was a blur as he stood with his useless body pinned down by some taunting force, all of reality molten into one cold streak of movement and sound. 

It was nothing short of a miracle, what happened when he stared ahead with his eyes unseeing. According to someone who was kind enough to fill him in, Thor and Strange, who appeared out of absolutely fucking nowhere, reached Thanos and tore the gauntlet off of him along with his entire hand. While Thor buried his axe in Thanos’ head, twisting it and making sure it sat deep like an unremovable crown until Thanos’ eyes faded into a dull fog, Strange ripped the Timestone from its socket and reversed everything he thought appropriate.

All that mattered to Steve then was not that the world would be safe, after all, though, but that the colorless flecks of soil rose into the air, sticking back together to reconstruct Bucky’s shellshocked form, starting from his booted feet, up to his eyes that were still lodged into Steve, filled with panicked confusion.

When Bucky repeated his name hoarsely, Steve stumbled forward and sealed Bucky in his arms, his embrace returned instantly as soon as they came together. They held each other tight till their arms ached, and still they held on, breaths rattled by silent weeping, until one of the Dora Milaje came to fetch them with the good news of success on her battle-chapped lips. As they followed the warrior towards an awaiting jet, Steve felt himself trembling all over, like in a fever back from when he was a child. Bucky trapped his hand in his own shaking grip and refused to let go.

That night, in one of the impossibly lush suites King T’Challa placed them in, they clung to each other like to lifelines, retracing every curve and redrawing every line of each other’s bodies, tears of desperate relief mingling with sweat and more. 

Later, they collapsed into slumber with their limbs a messy tangle and their chests pressed into one, insistent on staying wrapped up in one another even as they lay unconscious from exertion amongst the ruffled sheets.

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up the following morning to golden streaks of morning light spilling across the mahogany floors. When he props himself up on one elbow to glance over at the time, the digital numbers of a glowing clock melded into the bedside table let him know it’s only thirty seven minutes past five.

He settles back into the mattress.

Beside him, Bucky is fast asleep on his stomach, his ribcage expanding and contracting in a steady rhythm. His dark hair is covering his face, and Steve reaches out to tuck it away behind Bucky’s ear.

Bucky's lips are slightly parted, his eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks, and he looks so innocent, so clueless, like he’s never swung his fist on another person, never shot anyone in the heart without thinking twice. Without thinking at all.

HYDRA have invaded his mind, turned him into a ruthless killing machine and shattered all he’s ever been into shards that he’s only now retrieving and putting back together, building himself back up piece by piece, slowly bleeding everything they’ve made him to be out.

Thinking about how broken Bucky’s been at the beginning, Steve’s blood threatens to boil over with the inhumane hunger to strangle every single person that’s ever dared to put a finger on Bucky and twist the cocky young man from Brooklyn into a wrecked shell of a human being.

Steve strokes Bucky’s naked back, taking the time to brush his thumb over every single scar. Bucky’s tan skin is smooth and warm beneath Steve’s palm despite all the white lines scattered over it, and Steve traces the well-defined muscles stretching under it with a fingertip, memorising the sight to pour it onto paper once he has a second to spare.

He leans in to place a soft kiss between Bucky’s shoulder blades, then mouths his way over to where skin melts into metal. He kisses gently along the seam, feeling the two different textures under his lips. Bucky used to always flinch away when Steve touched the ragged scar tissue, his eyes painfully insecure and panic-stricken all of a sudden; he thought it disgusting, unworthy of Steve’s affection, and it always broke Steve’s fucking heart.

Nowadays, Bucky’s breath only trembles for a second when Steve’s hands or lips brush over the shiny scars. Steve hopes it means that Bucky understands he’s silently saying how beautiful he is, all of him, every time he plants as much as a peck on Bucky’s left shoulder.

When Steve lazily kisses the crook where Bucky’s shoulder becomes his neck, the sleeping form stirs, and a low, cat-like purr vibrates through Bucky’s body.

"Steve...?” he croaks, voice thick with sleep.

"Yeah, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, nosing at the warm skin. "It’s me.”

"Mornin’,” Bucky says huskily, right before Steve reaches the sweet spot under his ear.

"Mm,” Steve says, circling the sensitive point with the tip of his tongue. Bucky shivers, eyes fluttering open. Steve discovered the patch of tender skin a couple of months into their relationship, back in 1936; he's never ceased on giving it his loving attention every chance he got since.

"Did you sleep well?” Steve asks, abandoning Bucky’s ear and moving down the stubble-rough line of his jaw, peppering it with chaste kisses.

Bucky half-sighs, half-grunts in content. "Always sleep well when you’re with me,” he says, words muffled by his pillow.

Steve laughs quietly. "You sap.”

His chest pangs with a sort of helpless affection sticking to his lungs from within like honey, and he catches the corner of Bucky’s mouth in a kiss, the gesture awfully disproportionate to the joy of his twisting heart.

Bucky flips himself over carefully and captures Steve’s lips in a proper kiss before he has a chance to pull back. It’s slow and lazy and sweet, and Steve smiles into Bucky’s pliant mouth.

"How’s your arm?” he asks after a while, barely withdrawing so his lips are still brushing against Bucky’s as he speaks.

Bucky blinks up at him. He cards his metal fingers through Steve’s hair, pale eyes twinkling with sleepy mirth, and he steals a languid peck before responding. "’S fine.”

"That’s good,” Steve hums and leans back into Bucky.

Shuri’s new design suits him - it blends into one with his body, with him, the way the raw, cold steel and the Soviet star never could. Steve notices how Bucky’s face doesn’t grow sour anymore once he remembers his left arm is no longer what he was born with, and how easy it is for Bucky to fall into step with the vibranium prosthetic, as if it were.

Steve’s talked with Shuri about the glittering golden seams the new arm is interlaced with; she’s schooled him on kintsukuroi, a Japanese art of mending broken things with gold, all the while gesturing wildly with her hands, not bothering to battle the rare gusts of wind in her cornrows. The conversation has left Steve teary-eyed and Shuri both touched and faintly amused (she’s clapped him on the shoulder, saying ‘It’s okay, old man’ while he blinked the wetness away, pretending it wasn’t there).

Bucky’s mouth is slack and slightly swollen by the time Steve pulls back.

"I love you," Bucky whispers. Steve looks at him then - at the dark tumble of untameable hair that curls at the bottom after it rains; at the eyes, both a curse and blessing, hazy with bliss; at the pink stretch of lips; lips which told countless terrible jokes around the Howlies’ campfires, lips that whispered sweet nothings only for Steve to hear at those very same gatherings, lips that spilled endless filth in their tent after. 

When Steve realises, despite his feeble attempts at not thinking of it, how unbearably, achingly close he came to losing all of that all over again, he promises himself, swears on his own blood that he will say those three words more often now.

So he does, and when Bucky grins dazedly beneath him, he locks their lips once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://lattelyy.tumblr.com)!


End file.
